Vincent got up and left immediately.
Not long afterward, a message appeared on my phone.
Vincent: I am going to bring Lily back to the estate. Clear your things out of the estate. I'll have someone change the locks in two days.
I didn't reply.
I quietly began erasing every trace of myself from the Alderwyn Estate where I had lived for five years.
A long time later, my phone lit up again.
Vincent: Call me if you need anything.
Vincent: I can't give you a title, but we can still be friends.
I had loved Vincent for 10 years, and all I got in return was a casual offer to stay friends.
That was all I had become to him: a friend.
*****
That storm lasted for two full days.
By the time it let up, Solmere Isle was drenched, and the damp cold seemed to have seeped into my bones.
I couldn't sleep. Every night, I got up in the dark and flicked my lighter on and off.
When I first got together with Vincent, he was a broke street thug who couldn't pay rent and slept in an underground parking garage.
In the wet, stale air, the flame from that lighter had been our only light.
The lighter clicked, flared, and went dark, over and over.
In the dark, Vincent had stared at me in my school uniform.
"Think this through, Cheryl. There's no future for a man like me. I can't give you the future you want."
I had been painfully naive then.
I took off my school jacket and wrapped my arms around his freezing body.
Even through the thin white tank top, his body heat seeped into me and chased away the damp chill.
I had nodded with stubborn certainty.
"Vincent, I don't care about a future. I only want you."
Vincent and I had wielded Berettas and knives side by side.
There were nights filled with the smell of bandages and antiseptic when he would grip my throat and take me until I blacked out, only for me to wake up and have him start all over again.
Vincent used to say that when he washed his hands of the syndicate, the first thing he would do was marry me at St. Corvin Cathedral.
Now he was finally getting out, and the first thing he wanted was to cut me out of his life.
I was 28. He was right about one thing. I wasn't young enough to keep risking my life beside him forever.
Besides, my family had already arranged a match for me, and he was waiting for me to come home and marry him.
Aksara